Forgive and Forget
by mimi 007
Summary: A woman of about thirty years enter the office of the young Kazekage, her eyes revealing both hate and suffering. Would he, just please, help her, or die trying?


Another one-shot about _him_, also for the contest 100 confessions competition that I have uploaded. The prompt is Forget. My beloved Gaara is the center of this one-shot, and it is set a month or four prior to the beginning of Shippuuden. God, I love that redhead -.-'

Disclaimer: Own nothing. Nothing at all. Would never be able to create or own something as brilliant and big and PERFECT as Gaara…

"Kazekage-sama?" The turquoise eyes lifted and settled upon the man standing in the door to the office. He had knocked, but not gotten permission to go inside. The redhead could not decide if it bothered him or not. At least, it might be a matter that could give him a reason to postpone some of the paperwork he had been filing for the last hour and a half.

The man in the door was a typical example of the average Suna ninja, the bandages around his head, neck and arms the ultimate proof of his profession and home-country. His skin was colored red and brown by the harsh desert sun, his skin rough after years on duty. Still, as his eyes looked upon his younger man with the pale skin who was called his superior, his eyes became darker and unsettled.

Gaara just watched the man, trying to form a smile but having no real reason for. This meant his face looked more like a grim grimace, and he decided once again not to smile in public and practice it while being alone instead. Though he knew he would forget it. He did not like the look in the man's eyes, and while it did not give him the wish to kill any longer, it still stirred some angry feelings. He had met those eyes all his life, been tormented by that hate he could not understand since he was very young, so you could not be surprised.

But more than the hate directed towards the man was the regret that now filled him every time he faced his subordinates. "Yes?" he said, wanting to know what the man was seeing him for. He was one of the few making an effort to change his attitude towards the boy that had been their leader for nearly two years now. He had not been putting his responsibilities onto others, which was done by most other Kages but would have been frowned upon if he did the same. He fought for the position he had been placed in.

"There is a matter to be discussed. Ami will give you more details, though I will inform you that it is about a murder." The teenager simply nodded, watching as a woman of about thirty years passed the man. Her eyes were blurred in sorrow, and as soon as her eyes met the redhead's, a fiery hate mixed with it. She was a simple commoner, no attachments to the ninjas, yet she stood here in front of him, about to discuss a matter with the leader of the Suna ninjas and village.

He watched her dark brown eyes, finding trouble in recognizing her even if he knew he had met her before. Her mouth was pressed thin, as if she tried not to curse at him, and her hateful eyes which were filled to the brink with sorrow. He was sure the tears would begin to flow the moment she stopped breathing the hate she held towards him.

"Who has been murdered?" he asked, knowing the person had been very close to her. "And why is it you and not an unaffected coming to me with the case?" Gaara was fighting hard to find a concerned, polite and friendly tone of voice, but even he could hear how uncaring his voice was ending up as. He noted that it was not only the smile he was going to practice in front of the mirror.

Her jaw clenched, the next words some she wished she could be without. "I… hoped you would make sure the right people would investigate the case. Since he was a Chuunin ninja." A sudden bitterness replaced the hate in her face. It hit Gaara harder than anything else. "It is not the first time I have experienced losing a ninja husband, after all."

His throat grew thick, but his face did not change. He knew what she meant, and he knew where he had seen her before, and more than anything, it explained the stronger hate she held towards him than most and the reason for her mixed feelings. "Oh…" he breathed slowly. It was the only visible sign of his realization, and her eyes widened in anger and a faint disappointment.

"Just… think about it, then." Her voice was trembling in the forced calmness and suppressed feelings, and she closed her eyes for a moment and breathed slowly and deeply to calm the wild emotions battling just underneath her skin. She turned, striding out with long steps, and the door slammed behind her much lighter than he thought it would.

A sudden sting in his heart caused Gaara to stand, and with his white-and-blue Kage-coat swishing behind him, he startled his guards standing beside his door by coming out. Looking to the sides just outside, he noticed her figure turning a corner. He followed, walking faster than normally, even causing his normal staff to turn for him, not understanding what upset him, _him_, enough to run.

Just before she opened the door, she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned her head, two single tears falling from her eyes, and her mouth opened in blind shock. The redhead held his pale hand on her shoulder, staring up at her with those emotionless eyes. He was a head shorter, and standing in front of him now, seeing his small form in that big, falling cape, she suddenly understood he was merely a child, a young boy, put in a position far too hard for him. Yet no one had had any reason to complain of matters getting postponed or laws forgotten to be signed.

"I will personally find the culprit," he promised her, and though his eyes and voice were bared of emotions, there was something in the words that finally showed there was something more to him than just a shell, a young murderer. "He will be imprisoned, or, if you wish, executed." She simply nodded, too shocked to say anything, and too aware of his ice-cold hand holding her shoulder so carefully.

"You would not have come to me if you had not thought, deep down in your heart, that I would actually do something about it. You are trying to forgive me for all my unforgivable doings, and you have almost already done so. All I want you and everyone else to do is to forget, and if helping you avenging your second husband after stealing away your first, I will do so. Come with all information you have as soon as you can, and I will make it my most important task."

He let her go and bowed deeply, turning away from the woman to get back to his office and work. He did not know that already there, the twice as old human being had learned the lesson of her life, and she promised herself to fulfill his wish as well as possible. If he could find the murderer, she would make it her task to help everyone forget his bad doings and show them the hardworking, slightly stressed young man she had seen this day, sitting behind his desk doing pounds of paperwork.


End file.
